Pat Robertson is in the news again. He usually is at the start of a new year for his ridiculous yearly prognostications. This week it's because of his statement about God's judgment being reflected in the events in Haiti. He said similar things about New Orleans when Katrina struck. Is he right or wrong?
I will not jump on the bandwagon led by the spokesman for our guru-in-chief in the White House. At this point, I'm not sure the big cheese knows anything about anything, but I'm downright certain he knows nothing of the Bible or the intricacies of how God governs the world. The White House is not alone in this; however, more than a few Christian clergy are singing the same song. Is it in tune, biblically, or just expedient for fundraising and image?
There are many biblical precedents of God bringing judgment in response to sin to individuals and peoples. Since God is immutable, what he's done before in time, I could seeing him doing again. Therefore, this is not just an OT paradigm--God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Is this not what so much of the Apocalypse is about? Perhaps Herod, the worm-fed, might have something to say on the subject.
There are also biblical precedents for tragic events occuring having nothing directly to do with judgment for sin. Towers fell, children died untimely deaths, folk lost everything, capriciously it seems. Such things occur because of sin and the judgment upon it in a general sense, but hardly ever as the specific retribution for a specific sin. In eternity none of that will be the case, but in the now, we are broken vessels living in a broken world. Walking amidst the chards, someone's bound to get cut.
Even though it's cliched, we need to see that we're all in the same boat. Everyone dies, even the best among us; everyone sees pain and heartache, it's the human condition. Our response to the beaten and bloodied should not be speculation about the motives of God in bringing them to that condition, that's not something God has given us eyes to see. Our reaction should be binding the wounds we can bind, that our God-given eyes can see just fine.
Though God's grace meets us in this broken world, it doesn't change the nature of it. There is a day appointed when God will intervene, do away with all that's rotten, and start again without it. Until then, we must live with the perplexity, the seeming capriciousness, of tragedy in mutual pity and compassion. Now's not the time for ex post facto jeremiads, but for giving a hand to a injured shipmate. When bad things happen, good neighbors are needed.
My analysis of biblical end-times prophecy has brought me to theorize that the Antichrist will start out as a nominal Muslim and that his initial empire will be among the Muslim nations in the Levant. Such a thought holds the potential of eliciting an animosity toward Muslims in those persuaded by it. Seeing them as the accomplices of the Antichrist's end-times villainy doesn't cast them in the best of light after all.
I've also stated that opposing the rise of the Antichrist is like spitting into the wind. I believe the rise of the Antichrist will seem logical and even good in its day, and it is part of God's stated plan to wind up redemption history an initiate redeemed eternity. God wants all men saved and all the saved in eternity with him. To poke a finger in the dike trying to withstand the rise of the Antichrist is tantamount to crying "Nahchetlawd" instead of "Maranatha!"
With this in view, what should our attitude be toward the Muslim tribe? Is God's attitude and reaction to Saul of Tarsus any clue? This post by my blogging friend, Dr. Michael Davis, may be of some help in answering those questions. The old iconic image of an alarm clock, with its two bells sounding the alarm, might be a useful illustration. A resurgence of jihadist Islam sounds one ominous tone; the miraculous, Holy Spirit launched rescue mission among Muslims closed off from the evangelistic forays of the church sounds another.
Blogging has reignited a tension I've felt almost since coming to Christ all those years ago. I was saved during my time in a secular college, and immediately involved myself in campus ministries. There I was taught it was of utmost importance to know what I believed and why. I appreciated the perspective but realized early on that a body of knowledge was not the same as Christianity. Jesus is not our Headmaster, and Christianity is not gotten by degree.
The things most important about Christianity cannot be reduced to curricular study. Christianity is not knowledge to master, it's a master to know, and experience. The truth is that it's not what you know that counts, but who. A quick read of Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17 should clear up any doubts on the matter! It wasn't a textbook (not even the Bible) that Jesus handed out to those first followers, it was the Holy Spirit. Christianity at its heart is a mystical experience, not an academic exercise.
Please understand me, I'm not saying that study and academics have no benefit to the Christian community. What I am saying is that study and academics are not the means by which someone knows God and is made one with him. We must be born of the Spirit to see the Kingdom of God, and walk in that Spirit in order to truly live.
I thoroughly subscribe to the tenet that the Bible is our only rule of faith and conduct, that's it's the very word of God, and indespensible to learning about God. On the otherhand, I thorougly realize that knowing what's in a book is not the same as knowing God. I suppose when it comes to this tension between knowledge and knowing, we're destined to look a bit like Push Me Pull Me.
Have you ever considered what a coincidence it is that two consecutive generations of one family way back in the misty past have wound up having such an unproportional influence on human history? Granted, the population of the planet then was much less than it is today, but it was, even at that time, spread broadly across the earth. Nonetheless, one family in one little corner of the earth has impacted us all through the following years like nothing or no one else ever has. I'm not talking about Adam and Eve, nor even their east African analog that "science" seems so ready to embrace. I'm talking about a non-descript drifter, well within the reach of recorded history, who never was an emperor, king or emir, and yet...
Abraham, the nomadic shepherd, had two sons* by different women in the same camp-- one was his wife, Sarah; the other his, er, mistress, Hagar. As in the case of many blended families in our day, things didn't go all that well as tensions and jealousies increased. Finally, the straw that broke the camel's back was laid upon the situation, and Abraham was forced to send the mistress and her son away to the east with nothing, really, but an amazing prophesy for their lineage. They ended up in what is today Saudia Arabia, and the son, Ishmael, went on to became the father of the Arabs (as both the Bible and Koran attest).
Isaac, the son who stayed, had two sons too, but by the same woman. They were, in fact, twins. The older, Esau, flippantly sold his birthright to the younger for a bowl of soup after developing a bear of an appetite on a hunting trip. He didn't have the faith to believe the promise of God (
which was, really, all that Isaac had to pass on), was an inheritance worth fretting about. As a result, the "potential" title to Canaan fell to Jacob, and Esau headed east to the area Hagar and Ishmael had headed to earlier. There, I have no doubts, the blood of the rejected son commingled with that of the son who rejected the promise.
The history of the son of promise has been, well, checkered at best. The line of Isaac and Jacob has been in constant rejection of the terms of its covenant, consistent in its rejection of the God of that covenant, and as a result, repeatedly rejected by the land of the covenant. Somehow, in the midst of such a debacle, the promised one came forth from the people of promise, and the world has not been the same since. Nearly a third of the world's population today at least nominally pledges allegiance to Jesus Christ, the promised Savior from the house of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The history of the rejected has been mostly quiet with a bang at the end-- like fused dynamite! From tribes of nomadic shepherds, waylaying bandits, and unscrupulous traders a mighty nation and a worldwide religion was born. Mohammed burst on the Arab scene in 570 CE, and things have never been the same since. Near one quarter of the world's population today hear the call from the minaret five times a day and pledge allegiance to Allah and his prophet. Their zeal for conquest and conversions knows no bounds, and I think the percentage giving fealty to the Koran will rise noticeably before our eyes as we approach the end.
It's hard to imagine that such an inauspicious start so long ago has ended up effecting so much. There are 1.2 billion Chinese, and about the same number of Indians (~40% of the world's population combined), and yet it's not Buddhism or Hinduism that is at the forefront of human affairs, it's Christianity and Islam-- the promise and the rejection of the promise. One would think that would cause an unbeliever pause, but it doesn't seem to! Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. At the end of time, it seems fitting that the spiritual battle for the hearts and souls of mankind would come out of that same struggle fleshed out between two sets of brothers so long ago.
Ultimately, the lie at the end of time will springboard from the lie of Islam-- twisting promises made long ago by God to that one family. Not a very surprising twist of circumstances if you take biblical prophecy seriously, but a periously ignorable happenstance if one never considers just how unusual it is that things have worked out they way they have. I guess when it comes to unbelief, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
*Abraham did have other "wives" and other children after Sarah died.
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." Luke 3:7-9 NIV
Grace and the finished work of Christ are the shoes upon which the Gospel walks, but John the Baptist's statement above should put a wrinkle into the casual way many Christians look at those shoes. Granted, John was the last of the OT prophets, and prophesied under that economy, but I think he still speaks to NT faith. What he says is wake up and don't be presumptuous.
The people he leveled these statements at were depending upon their birth status to make and keep them acceptable to God. What occured in a moment in time (through no fault of their own, no less), at the begining of their journey on earth was sufficient, in their minds, to carry them to the end of their time. They knew whose child they were, or so they thought!
John said the fact of their birth in the household of faith was not enough. It was not their history (especially an isolated moment in it) that mattered so much as their present. It seems the religious have ever been satisfied trying to establish labels written in indelible ink rather than in faithful practice, but there is no better way to give faith shoes than practice. Hence, John's comments about stones and fruit.
Fruit, like manna, has a limited shelf life. It needs to be fresh to be useful, to provide sustenance. The faith that recognizes God and therefore turns to him from sin and self is not something that can be stored on a shelf either. Faith, it seems to me, is not a status but a state, and an active one at that! Grace may not be established on works, but the one in grace will most definitely work.
For those made right by God, there's no getting past the need to bear the fruit of repentance today. You may say, "but I was born again on such and such a date, I'm signed, sealed, and delivered." I would say in response that your dependence on a birth experience seems as hollow as that of those that came to John. There is a danger, you see, in depending on status rather than fellowship with God.
Grace is the joyful kindness which fills the heart of God. It is his pleasure to redeem the estranged and to rescue the lost. It should be noted, however, that if he were just a big fluffy pushover, we wouldn't have been estranged in the first place! God hates sin, fundamentally. That will never change and never cease to be true of him. It means that his reaction to sin will always be thorough and inescapable. Certainly, that's something to think about!
Faith is the means that this kind and severe God has established by which his grace is brought to bear upon the condition of the estranged. We are saved by grace through faith. Humans who express such faith get saved, those who won't, don't. A statement like that is likely to bend some Calvinists into a pretzel, probably a salty one, but it reflects the Bible on the subject, what can be wrong with that? Faith has always been, and always will be the issue with human beings in regard to their relationship with God.
Faith is not a static thing, however, it has a shelf life, a relatively short one, it seems to me. To envision faith as if it was like a switch--once turned on it stays on, without thought-- is a mistake in my view. Faith is a dynamic conviction, a motivating understading that has power while its active, but diminishes when its not. Faith has ebb and flow, it does not exist in the static universe, but only in the realm of action. Try to put it on a shelf, like oil in a lamp, unused, untended, and inactive, it evaporates and won't be there to bear light when needed. It not only has to be engaged to function, it has to function to exist.
Can we learn a lesson from the traveling Israelites, whose sustenance, like ours, was dependent upon God's grace? Faith is like manna, it's good for today, but does not project to tomorrow. Even the pot collected to serve as a communal memorial has long since turned to dust and blown away. Faith is a working thing, and a present thing. Manna could never serve as a knick-knack, neither can faith.
Zoiks! I know I've taught this for what seems like forever with conviction and near certitude, but seeing things shaping up as they are makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. As I've said before, the Bible teaches that the Antichrist will rise in Turkey and control two other nations (likely adjacent) in his climb to worldwide dominion. Dr. Michael Davis published this astonishing article yesterday. YOU'VE GOT TO READ IT!!!! Thanks Dr D for the heads up, and thanks Wikipedia for the pic.
And then there was this a few weeks ago. Hmmm, what is it that Turkey is positioning itself for? Don't tell me better relations with and economic opportunities in Europe. Something more is afoot, trust me! This is the end game, and yes, I know folk have been convinced of that before, and yet here we still are. But the totality of things prophesied have never come together so completely before. I hope you're wearing your flying shoes. Thanks Heanous for the heads up.
This story is absolutely amazing! What does it say about Crisis Pregnancy Centers shift to an ultrasound strategy for combating abortion? Whereas the scriptures say one can only believe in what is not seen, the people we're trying to persuade say seeing is believing. Regardless, God has a way of making his enemies friends! A strange way to fight a battle, I know, but apparently it's very effective, at least the early church would say so.
It is frustrating trying to know how to approach the abortion battle in America. The religious foes of abortion, particularly Evangelicals, have been waging political warfare for 30 years, with precious little to show for it. Even with pro-life majorities in both houses of Congress and a pro-life President (from 2002 to 2006) nothing, really, got done. Innocent blood continues to pay the price for American hedonism.
As a result (I hope) some have taken to more violent measures in their frustrations. I think, however, violence is likely to beget only more violence, fire is likely to be met with fire, without actually stopping the evil battled against in the first place. The devil doesn't let loose of his grasp on those that are his through unbelief. His claws are only broken by the light of faith.
Murder is worth being against in any venue. It is a justice and mercy issue. The early church was opposed to abortion within the Roman Empire, but did not have the opportunity nor the political power to do anything legislatively about it. They fought their battle passively by getting adults saved and actively by rescuing the exposed (adoption). Abortion never became illegal within their realm, even after the days of Constantine, but it all but ceased due to the power of conversion and persuasion-- a lesson for us, perhaps?
Today, 492 years ago, an antisemitic monk tacked an op-ed piece on the door of a Catholic chapel in Wittenberg, Germany. The rest, as they say, is history. I am no fan of Luther or Calvin (although he did write a superb series of commentaries); really, it was the radical reformation (Anabaptists) that did anything that could be called restorational (although real restoration did not begin until 1906 and Azusa Street). Nonetheless, I think it's still better to celebrate Reformation Day than Halloween, and one doesn't need to dress up as a dead person to do so! So, Happy Reformation Day!
